Pre-cooked and pre-packaged frozen meals and food items are a popular way to divide large amounts of food products prepared at a given time for final preparation and consumption in smaller individual or group portion sizes at a later time. Such meals typically require heating or warming to a temperature not only comfortable for consumption but also to a pathogenically safe level through conventional means such as the use of an oven, toaster oven, convection oven, microwave or similar device.
These items, however, generally require the product's seal to be broken in the rethermalization process. If the package containing the food's seal is not opened intentionally prior to the process, either due to incompatibility with the process or for other reasons, the vapor pressure within the package generally will become too great for the seal to sustain and break the seal. Either event allows for the food to dry out if held at elevated temperatures for an extended period of time.